[HowardtheDuck]

I think stillorbiting's point about Cosmia transcending death is dead on. All of the songs in Ys deal with birth and death on some level, all in the form of transformation. Transformation is a huge theme in all of her music, but especially on Ys. Joanna said that Ys is based on a few big events in her life over the course of a year, the biggest being the sudden passing of her best friend. I think this is the only song that is clearly about something specific, which ends the album on a very real and grounded note. Ys tends to flit all over the netherworld and imaginary farms and outer space. You're always trying to catch the butterfly in the net but keep missing as it flies somewhere else. The whole record is spent running after something, or running away from something. Cosmia has us arriving somewhere.

The stanza that always gets me is:

water were your limbs and the fire was your hair
and then the moonlight caught your eye and you rose through the air
well if you've seen true light, then this is my prayer:
will you call me when you get there?

I mean...just amazing. She goes from this incredibly evocative imagery to a simple sentiment of things that best friends do - call each other and check in. Then the ending is just a heartfelt explosion of grieving. It's one of the most honest and heartbreaking moments on the record, or anywhere, really. She misses her friend so much, but at the end, she lets her go.

I bawled my face off when she played this at Carnegie Hall. I heard the opening notes and started crying immediately. She really nailed the ending which made it extra heart breaking.